Advertisement:

The act of deliberately damaging someone's knees to incapacitate them or limit their mobility. This can be performed by shooting the victim's kneecaps, or by striking them with kicks, melee weapons, or other up close and personal means.

Since this is an extremely painful type of injury, knee-capping can be used as a brutal form of Mutilation Interrogation. This can kill two birds with one stone for the savvy torturer, as the permanently debilitating nature of the injury makes it much more difficult for the victim to escape. Tearing up all that muscle, those sinews and those complicated bones with a bullet would in Real Life probably leave you crippled for life, if you weren't killed by blood loss or shock.

Knee-capping can also be used as a tactic in combat to drastically hamper the mobility of an opponent. Needless to say, this type of fighting is a bit too dirty for most upstanding protagonists, so it is often reserved for villains, Anti Heroes, and Combat Pragmatists.

Advertisement:

In real life, it is often not the kneecap itself that is the target of these attacks, as opposed to the joint and tissue beneath it. A piece of "Common Knowledge" is that kneecaps don't repair when broken/shattered. They do when treated properly, it just takes a very long time. Additionally, unlike in film and television, you would never actually aim to shoot out someone's kneecap or leg to disable a target in such a manner (see the Real Life section below).

Advertisement:

Examples:

open/close all folders

Anime & Manga

In the first episode of Black Lagoon, Revy reveals herself to be a fan of the act, and suggests performing it on Rock just for the hell of it.

Chinatsu from Jormungand brings us a particularly zealous example: When she's not gunning people down as part of her hitman duties, she apparently likes to build complex mechanical torture devices... including one designed to shoot a bound captive in the knee. In the same spot. 27 times.

Ibitsu: When the Strange Lolita corners Hikari and a classmate in the gym after school one night, she takes the classmate out of the picture by smashing her kneecap with a sledgehammer.

In Rurouni Kenshin, Kaoru ends up fighting Kamatari in a one-on-one matchup after Misao is taken out. Her final move (after her bokken and Kamatari's scythe are both broken) is to break Kamatari's kneecap with the handle of her wooden sword.

Bleach: Happened to Hiyori after she did a Groin Attack on Urahara. He was unhurt, she was hurt instead.

Durarara!!: Slon gets shot in the knees near the end of season two of the anime.

Card Games

The Munchkin card game gives us the Hammer of Knee-capping, usable only by dwarves.

Comic Books

In the Spawn comic, Twitch shoots Spawn in the knee to stop him from escaping. He is rather shaken when Al doesn't even slow down — Hellspawn have amazing regenerative abilities.

Impulse is once shot in the knee-cap by Deathstroke in Teen Titans. And, given the accelerated healing abilities of The Flash Family, he immediately burns through any painkillers and the doctors in the ER have to re-break it repeatedly because it keeps healing automatically but incorrectly.

Used twice in The Far Side: one is two goons threatening to "persuade" a guy with a wiffle bat (captioned "Ineffective tools of persuasion"), while another has goons waiting outside a guy's window, one doubting they're up to the task, as the guy has "kneecaps from hell" (they're each about the size of his head).

In Ultimate X-Men, Magneto was disappointed with his children for weakening the Brotherhood in his absence. So he knee-caps Pietro, his own son, with a shotgun and forces his daughter Wanda to watch.

One of Frank Castle's preferred methods of interrogation, since he's almost always carrying some kind of pistol, it's quick, and it's hideously painful. Although often he'll just shoot a victim's legs full of holes until they tell him what he wants to know, not just the knees.

During the finale of NYX, Bobby Body Surfs into one of Zebra Daddy's mooks, and forces the guy to shoot himself in the knee. And oh yeah, he feels everything that the people he takes control of do.

In Skywalker Strikes, Sana is confronted by some Rodian thugs who try to rob her while also looking for Han Solo. When they pull out blasters on her, she simply says "knees"... to the voice-activated Scattergun turret sitting by her feet.

Robin Series: Rob took out Mister Mayhem by kicking his knee the wrong way during a melee in Bludhaven where Robin, Ragman and Blue Devil were fighting thirty villains lead by Tapeworm. This had the added benefit of having the gadget Mayhem was about to throw in Rob's face hitting one of Tapeworm's crew instead.

Fanfiction

In Ghosts of the Past, sequel of Child of the Storm, Bucky Barnes demonstrates his proclivity for using this tactic to temporarily disable his opponent.

And in chapter 30, Syrus was going to pull this on Stevie, a thirteen year old boy, with a MAC-10 machine pistol, out of sheer spite.

York in The Equalizer 2 has the tendons around his knees severed right before he meets his long-awaited end.

In Undead or Alive, after the protagonists find out that the zombies pursuing them can't be killed with a bullet to the brain as one would expect, Sue opts to shoot out the zombified sheriff's kneecaps to make it much harder for him to catch up. This leads to a humorous scene later in which Cletus is forced to carry him piggy-back while chasing the heroes.

There's an ensemble knee-capping scene in Terminator 2: Judgment Day. The Terminator has promised John Connor he won't kill anyone. But they still need to get into heavily guarded areas, so he starts shooting people in the knee instead. (Although treated as a joke, the fact the man T-800 first shoots is an elderly guard who likely will never walk again gives that scene a bit of Mood Whiplash.)

A new and unusually intelligent mook looking to join Bucho's drug gang in Desperado gets put into a savage Gang Initiation Fight against an established member of the cartel. He gets his knee cap completely smashed during the fight, (prompting Bucho to quip "He'll never dance again") but manages to win and earn a spot anyway. For the rest of the movie he wears a crude brace by his knee and has issues moving around.

In Once Upon a Time in Mexico, when the Mariachi finally confronts Marquez, he blows both of the evil general's kneecaps out with a sawed-off shotgun before delivering final vengeance by blowing his head off.

Referenced in Reservoir Dogs, where Mr. White tells Mr. Orange that his gut wound is the second most painful place to be shot after the kneecap.

Meg shoots a mook in the knee at one point in The Replacement Killers. She later sees the same mook when she's captured and makes a smartass quip about it, to which he responds by kicking out one of her knees and making a quip of his own.

In the beginning of Inception, Mal is threatening Arthur with a gun in order to get Cobb to talk. Cobb points out killing him won't actually work in a dream. "But pain...? Pain is in the mind," Mal says sweetly, and shoots Arthur in the knee. Luckily for him, Cobb kills him, instantly waking him up.

In the climax of Jackie Brown, Ordell threatens to shoot both of Jackie's kneecaps if she doesn't give him back his money.

Near the beginning of The Substitute, Shale's girlfriend is kneecapped by a street gang, setting the plot in motion.

Torquemada: I asked in a nice way, I said pretty please! I bent their ears, now I'll work on their knees!

Welcome to the Punch (2013). Max Lewinsky tries to arrest Jacob Sternwood as he's fleeing a heist, only to get shot in the knee. Three years later when the main events of the movie take place, the constant pain and psychological trauma fuel Lewinsky's obsession with catching Sternwood when he returns to London.

Bubba Zanetti shoots the titular hero in the knee at the climax of Mad Max. After Max disposes of Zanetti he drags himself back to his feet and hops after Toecutter dragging his useless leg behind him and cementing his status as one of the most badass heroes in film history. Max wears a knee brace in subsequent films.

Wild Geese II. Former-RSM James Murphy is used to train the mercenary team in how to act like soldiers for a prisoner rescue. One of the team is IRA terrorist Hourigan, who repeatedly taunts Murphy; at the end of the training Murphy shoots Hourigan in the kneecaps (see Real Life) in revenge for some British soldiers he'd killed in an ambush, then shoots him once more in the head.

Literature

In one of the Raymond Chandler short stories, the protagonist stops one of the crooks from escaping by shooting in the most painful spot he could think of that wouldn't kill him: the back of the knee.

In Todd Strasser's book Give a Boy a Gun, the two boys who shoot up the dance shot the star quarterback in the knees. Since he's a football player, this is one of the most damaging things they could do to him without killing him.

Harry does this again to a minor league threat, Binder in Turn Coat. He was trying to hit him center of mass but was feeling the effects of being close to a grenade exploding, so his aim was understandably off.

In Feet of Clay, Angua explains that dwarves are so prone to "running at people and trying to bite their knees off" that the Watch have a code for it. Knees are in fact frequently mentioned as a favorite target of dwarves who've gotten into a fight with a larger being, at least when they're not aiming a little higher.

Death or Glory: Cain's guide assumes he can do whatever he wants (in this specific case, get sloshed on duty) because Cain needs him.

Cain: You can find water without kneecaps, can't you?

In Horus Heresy, during his escape, Vulkan stops Curze by breaking his knees with a giant power-hammer.

In Twig, Mary is shot through the back of the knee by Sylvester, in order to stop her from pursuing. With the advanced medical skill of Radham Academy she's back on her feet pretty quickly, but it provides a few months head start.

In an early example, Winnetou I has an example of this, when Old Shatterhand is forced into a rifle shootout with Indian chief Tangua. After Old Shatterhand announced to aim for his right knee - and after his own shot went wide - Tangua turned sideways in order to offer a smaller target. Of course, Old Shatterhand aimed for the right knee, hit it - and the left knee, as it was in a line with it.

Criminal Minds: In the season 6 episode "Today I Do", a self-ascribed motivational speaker turned serial killer shatters the kneecap of her most recent victim with a hammer after the victim refuses to eat the popcorn she made for her. She later turns this into a self-help lesson, by teaching the victim to "walk in the face of adversity".

In another Season 6 episode, "Into The Woods", one of the kid hostages helps the other flee by hitting the UnSub's bad leg via log.

In 24, Jack Bauer shoots a terrorist in the kneecap to get him to talk. In another season, he shoots The Dragon's wife near the kneecap to get him to talk.

In the Firefly episode "War Stories", this is how Shephard Book gets around the whole "don't kill" rule.

In Carnivàle, Jonesy's limp is the result of being kneecapped by mobsters when he refused to take a dive.

Darla: So many body parts, so few bullets. Let's begin with the kneecaps. No fun dancing without them.

The demon Balthazaar also orders it done to Wesley in the episode "Bad Girls", but Wesley wiggles his way out of it.

Possibly slightly ironic, Wesley does it to a guy at Wolfram and Hart in season 5 of Angel, when he finds the guy isn't working to save Fred.

This was threatened on Veronica Mars when Logan was being tortured. His tormentors were playing Russian roulette with him, pulling the trigger after each "wrong" (i.e. not what they were looking for) answer given. After two "wrong" answers, they moved from his arms to his knees.

Person of Interest. John Reese's trademark combat tactic, to the point where his handiwork is instantly recognizable to anyone who's familiar with him. He frequently shoots assorted bad guys in the knee to stop them from pursuing him rather than killing them. Fortunately for him, his targets are almost always too busy clutching their knees and groaning to shoot at him from the floor. It eventually becomes the trademark tactic of everyone who uses a firearm in Team Machine.

In Time Trax, after Darien manages to beat a 22nd century boxer (thanks to being trained by the boxer's father), the boxer is taken to the locker room and is nearly kneecapped by the mob for losing. Luckily, Darien and the boxer's father show up just in time. He ends up sending them both back to the future.

In Burn Notice, Michael in his voice-over notes that even a well-placed kick right beneath the knee will cripple most opponents, who in turn can make useful Improvised Weapons when out of other options.

In Kingdom of Loathing, this is the general modus operandi of the Penguin Mafia. You can even acquire one of their kneecapping sticks for your own use as a weapon.

This is a stick used by the Penguin Mafia to break the knees of those who fail to bend to their whim. Because if you're not going to bend to the Penguin Mafia's whims, your knees are not going to bend in the right direction anymore.

In the Resident Evil series, the player can kneecap the infected/infested/zombies/abominations to pull off kicks and tricks against the enemy although kneecapping is also arguably justified when fighting zombies. This is especially useful in Resident Evil 4 where Leon (and Ashley, in certain ports) can suplex the Ganado after a kneecap shot or door slam.

CarnEvil specifically models damage to the kneecaps, with a successful blowout treated as a kill. Oddly, shooting one kneecap will visibly and gruesomely damage both of them simultaneously.

Gnomes in World of Warcraft, being, well... gnomes, tends to set them at about kneecap height, one NPC even does threaten this when you fight her in northrend.

A post one the roleplaying forums on 'rogue cant' (criminal jargon) suggested gnome rogues can be called "Kneecappers" for the above reason.

In Fallout 3, the unique sawed-off shotgun is called "The Kneecapper".

Also, throughout the series aiming at a leg has always been a viable strategy. In Fallout 4, a ghoul with a crippled leg will have the limb fall off, rendering it unable to move or attack at all, the perfect stationary target, allowing players to kill ghouls many times their own level with ease.

Renegade!Shepard threatens this near the beginning of Mass Effect to get Fist to tell him/her where Tali is.

The Scout in Team Fortress 2 has an aluminum bat melee weapon, and one of his common catchphrases is "Say goodbye to your kneecaps, chucklehead!" There's no in-game difference when you attack someone's kneecaps, though, so his taunt is a bit meaningless.

On the other hand, Team Fortress Classic allows the Sniper to cut an enemy's speed in half with a leg hit, and the effect is permanent until healed by a medic. Most thigh-area shots seem to hit the pelvic region instead due to Hitbox Dissonance, so the safest way to cripple an enemy player is a rifle bullet in the knee. This especially infuriates and hamstrings medics and heavy weapons guys.

MechWarrior has a long and rich history of Kneecapping. Depending on which game you're playing, it can either turn enemy BattleMechs into limping wrecks (Such as MechWarrior 4 and its subgames) or straight out destroy the enemy (Such as MechWarrior 3 and it's expansion). In Mechwarrior Living Legends, kneecapping an enemy mech (or yourself) will cause the mech to ragdoll, but leave the pilot completely in control of the torso, weapons, and jumpjets; which can lead to players being killed by a crippled mech propped up against a building, or by a kneecapped mech flailing wildly end-over-end through the sky with its jumpjets on full blast. Kneecapped mechs are irreparable once they've gone ragdoll, though crippled legs (which greatly slow down the mech and prevent it from walking backwards) can be repaired.

Meanwhile in Harebrained's BattleTech; taking out a mech's leg knocks it prone. This causes a pilot injury (enough injuries disables the mech completely as the pilot is knocked out or killed), knocks the victim back one step in the initiative order, and renders them extremely vulnerable as called shots are free on Prone mechs. Taking out both of the mech's legs are an instant kill/disable; it's entirely possible to take out one leg whilst they're standing, then easily take out the other whilst they're prone so they never get up again.

Kneecaps can be targeted in both The Godfather games, temporarily making the victim kneel haplessly.

Kneecapping is pretty much Raul Menendez's favourite tactic in Call of Duty: Black Ops II; he cripples Woods for life by blasting him in both knees with a combat shotgun, and in an infinitely more sadistic instance, does the same to Hudson even though the latter is already restrained, unable to escape, and has just volunteered to die in order to save his comrades. The supplemental story "Rightful King" explains that he first learned to do this as a child, while helping his dad sell drugs for easy money in an earthquake-ravaged 1970's Nicaragua.

This is Marcus Kincaid'sintro in Borderlands 2. A hapless NPC asks for a refund on one of his guns, claiming it doesn't work. Marcus responds, "Hmm, I dunno...", and proceeds to kneecap the guy with the weapon in question. Then he gives a big grin and adds "Looks like it works to me."

Can be done in Postal 2, most reliably with the Sniper Rifle. Unlike taking An Arm and a Leg with the machete or hedge clippers, this isn't much more reliable than going for center mass. It's mostly just for the Video Game Cruelty Potential of leaving NPCs crawling around. Strangely, some enemies will pull out a pistol while falling, but they're never use it.

Shooting Police Officers on their knees in Watch_Dogs forces them out of the battle, and gives less negative Karma points than killing them. Unfortunately, this doesn't work on any other NPC in the game, meaning that shooting an escaping criminal on their leg usually makes them flinch/kills them.

The Elongated Crushblat in Hey! Pikmin is a flamingo-like creature with abnormally long legs. To reach its body, Olimar has to throw Pikmin at his feather-ornated knees to make it crouch, allowing him to throw Pikmins at it.

In Cruz Brothers, Tray has two stun move where he'll shoot his opponent's knee. Trevor has a similar move, where kicks the foe's shin so it breaks.

In the arcade Shoot 'em UpLast Resort, this is what you have to do to the third boss (a Humongous Mecha). Shooting his kneecap◊ when it opens up will eventually cause his legs to be destroyed and his top half to fall down, allowing you to face off against his actual weakspot in his head.

Several X-Rays and Fatal Blows in Mortal Kombat have characters aiming for and breaking the knees in gruesome detail, but none of it is permanent. Cassie Cage and Erron Black kneecap their opponent during their Bubble Head fatality in Mortal Kombat X and Melted fatality in Mortal Kombat 11 respectively.

The titular protagonist in Archer does this to a few members of the Irish mob who had been selling fake cancer medicines. Archer, being himself, uses a shotgun to kneecap them while playing a deranged version of Family Feud.

In the Hey Arnold! episode "Parents' Day", a jousting match takes place between Arnold's grandfather Phil and Helga's father Bob. Helga, conspiring to make Arnold's family win after her dad calls Arnold an orphan, secretly tells Phil to go for her dad's knees due to how stressed they are. Phil proceeds to swipe at Bob's knees, with Bob dodging the first time only to get sweeped into the gelatin below the second time, rendering Phil the winner.

Batman: Gotham by Gaslight: After defeating Big Bill Dust, Batman tells Dickie, Jason, and Timmy to quit working for him and go see Sister Leslie. When they protest that Big Bill will chase them down, Batman stomps Bill's knee and points out that he won't be in any condition to chase anybody for a long time.

Real Life

Figure skater and Olympic hopeful Tonya Harding's then-husband attempted to help her get a leg up on rival skater Nancy Kerrigan by paying off her bodyguard to attack Kerrigan's (right!) knee shortly before the 1994 Winter Olympics, in hopes of taking Kerrigan out of the competition. The attempt failed, since Kerrigan still won the silver medal; Harding came in 10th.

Knee-capping was often used as a punishment by the IRA and other Northern Irish paramilitary groups. There were four versions of it: A) a drill B) putting a gun at the back of the knee and firing C) a sledgehammer, and D) cinder blocks, originating with Protestant terrorists and gleefully adopted by their Republican counterparts. Many patients from the UK and Ireland will travel to have every day hip or knee replacement surgeries in Northern Ireland because the surgeons there... well, let's just say they've had plenty of practice.

Historically, kneecap mutilation was a possible punishment in ancient Dynastic China. One of the authors of a tome of military strategy was subject to this punishment as a result of court politics.

It's generally averted in real life, however. All reputable firearms training (civilian, police, and military) teach to aim center-of-mass at the torso, as it's a much larger and easier target to hit, and contains most of the body's vital organs. Even assuming you actually hit them, shooting someone in the knee may still not be enough to incapacitate them, at least not quickly enough to be of value.

When playing baseball, base runners will often slide, feet first, into 2nd or 3rd base in an attempt to avoid being tagged out or to break up a potential double play by clobbering the infielder covering the base. This is legal to do because the rules state that base runners have the right-of-way. Because infielders know what's coming and have a sense of self-preservation, they are very good at getting out of the way and the collisions that do occur usually don't result in anyone getting hurt. It is, however, considered very bad form (and will almost always lead to a bench-clearing brawl) when a runner intentionally aims for an infielder's knees by sliding with their cleats up. Ty Cobb was notorious for doing that.

Many soccer players end up with a torn ACL as a result of another player colliding with their knee at a bad angle.

Some self defense classes advocate stomping or kicking the knee from the side. If done correctly, the target will have their weight resting on that leg and the joint is stiffer. Because knees were not meant to bend that way and the weight keeps the knee from just bowing out of the way, this can buckle the joint and effectively ruin their chances of standing any time soon.

Over the last few years, the Israeli Defense Force has semi-officially adopted kneecapping stone-throwers and rioters as a preferred method of crowd control, rather than outright killing them. Mindful of the negative PR a street full of dead teenagers could produce, many of their marksman have switched to the .22LR caliber, since it's small enough to avoid guaranteed death if it hits the torso, but will certainly shatter a kneecap. And these marksmen are very good shots.

I used to be a troper like you, but then I took a lampshade in the index.

Community

Tropes HQ

TVTropes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available from thestaff@tvtropes.org. Privacy Policy